An urban poor group claimed that recent cases of demolition in urban poor communities in Quezon City should be blamed to an anti-urban poor policy called the Zero-Informal Settler Family (Zero-ISF) policy implemented by city Mayor Herbert “Bistek” Bautista since 2010.
Kalipunan ng Damayang Mahihirap (Kadamay) said the privatization policy of the government “has recently become a battle ground of violent demolition of homes, and host to huge fires that residents claimed to be cases of arson.”
As of August 2010, the number of informal settler families is said to have already reached more than 223,000, according to records of Quezon City Urban Poor Affairs Office.
The group said at least 80 families have lost their homes in th QC’s Litex Area despite the resistance of residents. Meanwhile, protests of residents in two other communities in QC also last week have failed attempts of the local government unit and the University of the Philippines administration to evict some 300 families from an urban poor community along Mother Ignacia Avenue in QC’s South Triangle, and 47 families along C.P Garcia Avenue in Barangay UP Campus.
